on being creative

My blog friend Rita just wrote a thought-provoking post on being creative. (Actually, she wrote it a week ago, but this house has been full of Pestilence and Disease for the past ten days, so I'm just now getting around to writing this.)

I've given a lot of thought lately to what "being creative" means, because it is something I greatly enjoy and yet do not do enough of. I have a lot of the same reasons Rita has.

1) I fear that what I make won't be good enough.

Good enough for who?

I'm not painting in my garage during the ten minutes between dinner and bedtime so I can submit something to the Whitney, or even to sell on Etsy.  I'm painting because I enjoy doing so.

Most of what I create is hanging on the walls of my house.  Not one person has ever walked into my house and said "wow, you hang that crap on your walls?" A few people on the internet have given less than kind feedback, but one could easily avoid this by not posting work on the internet.

Ninety-nine point nine percent of the world can create stuff without other people mocking it.  George W. Bush does have creative talent.  He's no Michaelangelo, but he turns out a decent painting.  Then his mom goes on the Today Show critiquing his portrait of his dad and says "that's my husband?"

Since more than likely you are not a former leader of the free world, you are free to create whatever you like without your mom disparaging it on national television.

2) Making something might take one try, or one hundred and forty-seven tries.

You have to respect the process.

Just like Hemingway's supposed quote on writing, the first draft of anything is shit.  This applies to just about everything I've ever painted.

For years, I would try and do something, and I would hate it, then I would paint over it, and then I would do it again, and it would still suck.  I would put it away, and then maybe a few weeks or months later I'd drag it out and try again.  And then I'd start to feel like I was getting somewhere.  Sometimes I'd finish, be ok with the finished product, and then decide a month later that it wasn't quite done. In fact, I think everything I've ever painted has been "finished" and then redone a month later.

The problem was that I used to look at that process as being evidence of not being good at something.  Now, I'm starting to look at it as part of the process. It takes me weeks or months and eleventymillion tries before I make something I'm proud of.  Some people can turn out something awesome in ten minutes.

I can't make anything quickly. But I can make something I like in a couple of weeks. Respect the process.

3) The more you do, the better you get.

Even if "better" isn't "awesome."

I have been painting on and off for a few years.  But only in the last year do I feel a certain freedom in making bad stuff.  In fact, I'm starting to expect crap on the first go round. Its sort of like Thomas Alva Edison--I've discovered 10,000 ways that don't work.  And, I've discovered a few ways that DO work.  And if I keep going, maybe I'll find something else that works.

Sometimes I get discouraged and think "this is terrible" and I put it away for a while.

The Ira Glass piece is true---you actually have to DO something in order to get better at it. And you will make a ton of terrible stuff before eventually turning out good stuff.

I've been working on painting flowers for a year. I suck at them. They look terrible. I'm not sure why, as flowers are basically circles, but still, I keep plugging onward.  Someday I'll turn out a decent flower.

4) Make it easy to get started.

I don't have a nice art studio.  I don't even have a spot with good light.  I do have a little spot right inside the garage door where I leave everything out, in case inspiration hits.

Something else that keeps me from painting on a consistent basis:  I'm not wearing painting clothes.

Painting occasionally lends itself to the time confetti that is motherhood. I can put a touch here, a touch there in between loading the dishwasher and waiting for the kids.  In fact, most paintings actually require doing a little of this and a little of that and then waiting for it to dry before adding another layer.  But I have managed to get paint on just about all of my nice clothes, so I stopped doing that.

I'm not doing something I really enjoy because I  might ruin my clothes. Clearly I need to get a painting coverall (painting bathrobe? Really big shirt?) and hang it right next to my painting area. (This starts to morph into a "not enough time" problem--changing my clothes acknowledges that I am about to use a large chunk of time doing something creative. Sometimes it is just easier to think, eh, not enough time to do anything today.)

5) Dana at House Tweaking wrote a good review of Elizabeth Gilbert's book Big Magic, which is about being creative.  It sounds like a great read.

How do you push yourself to be creative?